Pierre Boulez: There are many pieces that could be described as"the best of Mahler". But I find the musical vocabularyof the Adagio particularly toMard-looking. For me, it'sa summation of all Mahler had ever written. At the sametime, it places a question mark over the future, indicatingthat Mahler would have continued to develop if he'dlived a little longer.

ln whid direction would he have developed?

Pierre Boulez: That's difficult to say. There are links with earlySchoenberg, for example, especially the Gurre-Lieder,whose moods and range of expression come very closeto parts 0f the Adagio in terms of their musical language.But we can't argue on this basis that Mahlerwould necessarily have developed in the direction ofSchoenberg. In this respect his final work remains ambiguous.